


The Mary Sue Litmus Test

by lucidscreamer



Series: The Spork 'Verse [4]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Crack, Gen, Humor, not really about Mary Sues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 11:56:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13099581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucidscreamer/pseuds/lucidscreamer
Summary: Of course, it was Yugi's own fault for thinking Yami and Seto could be left alone for five minutes of unsupervised interaction without it devolving into a minor apocalypse.





	The Mary Sue Litmus Test

**Author's Note:**

> This is set after the events in "The Millennium Spork" but contains no spoilers for that story.

Yugi opened the door to his bedroom and nearly tripped over the tangle of long-limbed bodies writhing on the floor directly in front of him. Only a quick grab for the door frame kept him from face-planting on top of Yami and Seto Kaiba, who were either impersonating a pissed-off octopus or were, once again, trying to kill each other. Neither thought pleased Yugi, as bloodstains would be a bitch to get out his new carpet and if the pair of them didn't start acting their ages, he was going to have to kill them _himself_. (Or hire Emo to do it. The little twerp had to be good for something, after all.) It was either that or borrow his mom's soup ladle again.

" _Gah_! Make it stop, Yugi, before the horror blinds me!"

Joey, following close behind Yugi, immediately clapped one hand over his eyes, the other hand flailing in front of him in a desperate "warding off" gesture and accidentally whacking Yugi on the head. Since that hand also held an open bottle of soda, some of which was now trickling down Yugi's bangs, Yugi mentally added Joey to his growing "To Be Ladled" list.

Yugi shook his head, inadvertently getting a stinging eyeful of melon Ramune in the process. Of course, it was his own fault for thinking Yami and Seto could be left alone for five minutes of unsupervised interaction without it devolving into a minor apocalypse.

"Guys?" Yugi leaned cautiously into the room, but Yami and Seto ignored him, each intent on gaining the upper hand. "Uh, _guys_?"

Joey peeked through his fingers, then lowered his hand with an impressed whistle. "Wow. For a skinny little guy, Yami sure packs a wallop."

Yugi sighed. While this was true, he wished he could convince Yami to take the moral high ground and ignore Seto's provocations. Yugi hated fighting, and he didn't like to see his partner engaging in it. He took a deep breath.

"GUYS!" Despite his height (or lack thereof), Yugi had impressive, if somewhat high-pitched, lung capacity. "Knock it off, _right now_ , or I'm getting Mom's ladle!"

There was a pregnant pause -- and then the combatants broke apart, identical expressions of "you did _not_ see me engaged in anything as crass as a physical altercation with _him_ " writ large across both of their faces.

Yugi crossed his arms and glared at them. Not bothering to sound anything but completely exasperated, he demanded, "Well? What was it _this_ time?"

With as much dignity as he could muster under the circumstances (which wasn't much), Yami climbed to his feet and righted his clothing. The slightly sheepish cast to his carefully innocent expression did not suit him any more than its twin did on Seto.

Yugi tapped his foot impatiently. " _I'm waiting..._ "

"He started it!" came the response, complete with accusatory finger pointing. In stereo.

Yami and Seto swapped "eat flaming death" glares. Joey, in the midst of taking a swig of Ramune, snorted soda through his nose, showering Yugi with the overspray. Yugi sputtered.

While Joey squawked apologies in the background, Yugi attempted to glower up at Yami -- and even further up at Seto. As usual, Seto proved immune to the Glower of Imminent Doom and Destruction (which Joey insisted on calling the "Puppy Eyes of Eminent Cuteness and Yami-Melting"), but Yami caved with his usual gratifying swiftness.

Shoulders slumping in defeat, Yami sighed. "No fair, _aibou_. You _know_ I can't resist the Puppy Eyes of Doom."

Yugi had never quite figured out what his partner found so appealing about the puppy ey-- er, the Glower of Imminent Doom and Destruction, but he wasn't above taking advantage of it, whatever it was. He upped the intensity of the Glower. "What were you and Seto fighting about _this time_?"

Neither of the former combatants confessed, but Yugi caught the furtive glance Yami slanted toward Seto's laptop, open and humming quietly atop Yugi's desk.

_Oh, god_. Yugi turned the GoIDaD on Seto, who actually flinched, an action he quickly disguised as a sneeze so fake not even Joey was fooled. "You let him on the internet? What are you, _insane_?!"

" _Aibou_ \--"

"Don't ' _aibou_ ' me, Yami Atem Meryamun Mutou!"

("Whoa, he's full-naming you, dude. You're screwed."

"That was only four names. I'm not totally screwed until he pulls out the _praenomen_."

"Then you better 'pray' the rest of your 'nomen' doesn't come up.")

"You know what happened the last time!" Yugi continued as if he couldn't hear them whispering.

Last time, he had had to change his user IDs on every single social media site he frequented and, even then, his IP was still banned on half of them. One of the resulting flame-wars had its own Wikipedia page and he _still_ shuddered whenever he saw the Tumblr logo.

Joey wheezed the last of the soda from his fizzying sinuses and nodded sagely. "That'd be the Interwebs Thing Which Must Never Be Spoken of On Pain of Ladling."

Yugi pinched the bridge of his nose and wondered if he was too young to have a nervous breakdown. Yami was thousands of years old, for Pete's sake! So, why did _Yugi_ have to be the mature one when it came to dealing with Seto Kaiba and/or the Den of Electronic Iniquity (known to everyone who was _not_ an ancient pharaoh as 'the internet')?

"What. Were. You. Fighting. About?!" The last word came out as a kind of strangled shout of fury.

"He's turnin' red, guys," Joey announced. "Maybe you should just tell him, before he blows a gasket or somethin'."

Gingerly, Yami reached for the laptop and turned it to face Yugi so that he could read what was on the screen.

"'The Mary Sue Litmus Test'?" Yugi read aloud. "What the heck is _that_?"

"Remember how that awful Prom Queen Sue accused me and Kaiba of being Canon Sues? Well..." Yami rubbed the back of his neck as his cheeks flushed with color. "We were trying to prove her wrong."

"By... taking an online test to see how much of a Mary Sue you are." It was more of a statement than a guess, since Yugi was skimming the test in question and could see that that was exactly what they had been doing.

"Dare I ask why takin' the test led to tryin' to beat the crap outta each other?" Joey leaned over Yugi's shoulder to see what all the fuss was about. "Exactly how high did you guys score on this thing?"

Both Yami and Seto developed a sudden fascination with the ceiling.

Yugi scrolled down to see what the final score was, then checked the history for the other results... and burst into helpless giggles.

"What?" Joey hadn't been fast enough to read the results on the first page (darn Yugi's speed-reading abilities!) and he couldn't reach the computer to go back to it. "What?!"

"They tied!" Yugi managed to gasp between giggles, and then tipped over onto the bed, still snickering so hard his entire body was shaking.

"Heh. How big a number are we talkin' about, Yuge?"

Laughing too hard to form coherent words, Yugi pantomimed a very large number indeed. Even not knowing exactly what the Mary Sue scale was, Joey could tell that number ranked pretty high on it.

"It's not funny, Mutou!" Seto growled.

Yugi's gestures conveyed "oh yes, it is!" with remarkable clarity. He kept on laughing.

Joey _tried_ to clamp down on his own laughter. He almost succeeded, too. But then he got a good look at the stink-eye both Yami and Kaiba were shooting Yugi's way, and he just... lost it. Practically braying like a donkey, he folded over, slapping at his own knees.

"Kaiba Sue!" He snorted and collapsed the rest of the way to the floor.

"Yami Sue, too!" Yugi rolled off the bed with a loud 'thud.' It didn't stop him from cackling.

Seto and Yami exchanged haughty looks, conveying without words their shared contempt for the uncouth reactions of the peasantry, and strutted from the room with their heads held high.

Behind them, Joey began composing a song in their honor, ad-libbing lyrics about "Yami Sue and Kaiba, too -- Kaiba see and Kaiba Sue!" on the spot.

"Come on," Yami said, shutting the door and heading for the stairs.

Seto grimaced, but followed along. "Where to?"

"First, we hide Yugi's ladle. Then," Yami's smirk was pure evil, "we wait for him to realize his score is just as high as ours."

 

 


End file.
